The request for an exemption filed by the President’s teams to make the monument sparkle during his post-second round victory speech has remained a dead letter. The mayor of Paris ensures that there is nothing personal.
The image would have been perfect: Emmanuel Macron celebrating his victory Sunday evening against Marine Le Pen in front of a crackling Eiffel Tower and halo of glory the re-elected president. All that would have been missing was the “M” Bat-signal way in the sky of Paris. However, during the (long) arrival on foot of the Head of State at the Champ-de-Mars, then his speech on the stage, the iron lady was content to bathe in her classic yellow lighting.
Emmanuel Macron’s campaign team had nevertheless asked “during the week to make it sparkle outside normal hours”, is it indicated to Freed on the side of the Société d’exploitation de la tour Eiffel (Sete), a public company owned by the City of Paris and responsible for operating the monument. But no question of making tailor-made with the 20,000 spots of the device, retorts the Sete, even for the speech of the President of the Republic.
The process is regulated like clockwork, according to the institution’s website: “As night falls since the year 2000, the flicker is triggered at the beginning of each hour for five minutes until 1 am”. And not for Emmanuel Macron’s speech, around 9:30 p.m., as initially imagined by his strategists according to Le Figaro.
“Anne Hidalgo accepted immediately”
“The rule is that the Eiffel Tower sparkles when it is dark, which was the case at 10 p.m.”we justify at the office of the mayor of Paris, who refutes any desire “impediment” towards the president-candidate and his teams. “They asked the Champ-de-Mars for his statement, and they got it. Anne Hidalgo accepted immediately. Besides, he could have settled on that time [22 heures, ndlr], there would have been no problem for us,” assures the entourage of the former socialist candidate, who also evokes the “super beautiful pictures” of Sunday evening.
This refusal of derogation would still have brought in an Emmanuel Macron “already tense” in “cold anger”according to Le Figaro, to whom a macronist source mocks: “It’s called “1.75% nuisance power””, in reference to Anne Hidalgo’s score in the first round of the presidential election.
It must be said that the mayor of Paris and the re-elected president maintain relations that are strained to say the least, and that there is a precedent. In 2017, the elected socialist had already deprived Emmanuel Macron of beautiful images in front of the Eiffel Tower. In the event of victory, the candidate LREM wanted to celebrate it on Sunday May 7 at the Champ-de-Mars. Problem: the place belongs to the City of Paris. Anne Hidalgo had said “niet”, invoking the degradation of the lawns that this bamboche would have caused on the eve of a visit by the International Olympic Committee for the 2024 Olympics. Emmanuel Macron had finally chosen to fall back on the courtyard of the Louvre, state property.
Still, the panorama of Sunday, if it was not ideal for Emmanuel Macron, has a cost for the iron lady: “160,000 euros in lost ticketing”, it is estimated at the Eiffel Tower operating company. “For understandable reasons of public order”, the Paris police headquarters had requested that the monument be closed to visitors on Sunday at 5 p.m. instead of 11:45 p.m. in this season. “Discussions” will take place with the police headquarters regarding possible compensation for the loss of earnings.